by Ruby Dixon
Melted.
I push the lid aside and peer out. It’s smoky in here, and the air feels stiflingly hot, but there’s oxygen. It’s not an inferno. Not yet. I can hear something burning in the distance, and the dry heat of the air makes my throat tickle. I cough, sitting up. My head throbs with heat and somewhere in the distance there’s a low roar. Flames? I wonder, even as I crawl over the side of the coffin. “Stay put,” I tell Marisol like she’s a two-year-old instead of a woman my age.
When my feet touch the ground, though, I realize what the roar is. It’s water, ankle high and coming in to flood the ship. The water’s surprisingly warm, but I don’t know if that’s from the heat of the fires elsewhere or if it’s my cootie or what. At any rate, it’s not welcome. I gaze around in frustration as the pouring, roaring sound grows louder. We won’t have much time before the entire ship fills up. I’ve got to figure out a way out.
Smoke pours out of the entrance to the cargo bay. Not through the rest of the ship, then. That’s no good. I gaze around the room helplessly. The water’s filling up even now, and as I watch, one of the coffins by the wall lifts up, bobbing slightly. Fuck. It won’t take long now for this to completely flood and then I’ll drown.
Think, Lo, think. I wade forward, scanning the large chamber. There’s got to be a way out. Somehow. Somewhere. This is a cargo bay. Okay then…how do they get the cargo out? I scan the walls and my gaze locks onto the hatch Mardok warned me about earlier. What did he say? Something about a latch being busted? No, wait. It was something about components and stripped parts and if I touched it wrong it’d bust the entire wall open…
That’s exactly what I need right now.
“I know what to do,” I tell Marisol, sloshing through the water back to the side of her coffin. I point at the hatch. “That wall. Remember what Mardok said? You were in the room, weren’t you?”
She nods and her eyes widen. “It’ll come apart and knock us out of the ship. Do you think it’ll work?”
“One way to find out,” I tell her grimly. “But I don’t know if it’ll work, or even if it does, if we’ll be sucked away from each other.”
“I’ll help,” she says, and starts to climb from the pod.
“No,” I say, and stop her before she gets out. “There’s no time to argue, but if this is dangerous, one of us needs to survive. You climb back in the pod and pull the lid on. Even if we’re both sucked out into the ocean”—I shudder at the thought of that dark, green water with the strange, tentacled creatures in it—“then you have a better chance of living if you’re protected.”
“But—”
“No buts, Marisol. Please. Let’s just do this, okay? Every moment we waste arguing is another inch that the water rises.” I gesture at my legs, now wet up to the calf. “If it gets much higher, the pressure might be too much for us to blow whatever hatch there is in here.”
She hesitates, pleading in her eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”
“Me either.” I grab the lid of the coffin and start to drag it over her pod again. “So let’s get this done and see if we both make it out, all right?”
I think for a moment that she’s going to protest more, but she nods and slides back down into the coffin, helping me drag the lid back over her. When it’s on, there’s a little hiss of air and then it seals itself again. Well, that’s something at least. The bubble of glass atop the pod is too covered with ash and soot for her to see out—that makes sense, as it was pitch black in there—and I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should clean it off for her.
No time. She can sightsee when she’s safe.
I slosh my way back to the wall, trying to recall exactly what Mardok told me. There’s a coffin bobbing against it, floating in the water, and another one is sliding its way toward me. I push it aside, a little unnerved at how easy they are to move now. Damn water. I cough again, fanning a hand to try and clear the smoke. There’s not enough air in here. Not enough air and too much water. What a mess. “Whose bright idea was it to explode the spaceship?” I mutter to myself as I feel along the wall, looking for a latch or a handle of some kind. There’s a bar with alien writing on it, and it leads into a gap in the wall that looks like it’s been worked on—or scrapped—recently.
I place my hands on it. Please work.
Please don’t kill me.
Please don’t let a sea monster be out there waiting to eat me.
Please don’t let me drown.
So many requests, but I won’t know unless I push this hatch open. I suck in a deep breath, because I know this is suicide, but I do it anyhow.
The bar creaks, metal groans, and then I’m jerked outside in a rush of air and water as the vacuum sucks me out into the ocean.
I can’t help it. I scream. Or I try to, but there’s nothing but water and current. My mouth and lungs fill up with saltwater and I choke, trying desperately to breathe, but there’s nothing to breathe. There’s also nothing to hold on to as I’m ripped through the water, carried along by the current. I reach out, but there’s nothing to grab, nothing to hold on to.
I’m going to die.
I claw at the water, flipping back and forth in the endless deep. I don’t know which way is up or down. I fight against the suction of the water and open my eyes, squinting out into the brine. It burns and stings, but I see something move past my head. An enormous air bubble. Oh god, it’s going the other way. I flip over in the water and there’s sunlight far above—so far above. Frantic, I swim forward, my lungs and nose burning. It’s hard to swim with all these leathers on me and it’s so damn cold. I keep swimming, though, because the sunlight looks so close and yet so far.
Black creeps in at the corners of my eyes and I try to take another breath. Whoever said drowning was peaceful lied to me, because all I want to do is breathe and I can’t. Please. Please. Please. The light’s so close but I can’t reach it, and it feels like the current is still fighting me.
Why am I fighting so hard? Why don’t I just give up? Let the water envelop me and sink into it. End all this struggle. The thought is a surprisingly easy one to latch on to. If only I could take a breath, I could think clearly, but I can’t. There’s no air.
My limbs grow heavier and it just becomes too much effort to reach the sunlight. It doesn’t matter that it’s so close now that I can practically touch it. Too little, too late. I’ll save all that sunlight for someone else. I’ll just close my eyes and—
Something grabs a handful of my hair and yanks me up.
Pain lances through my scalp and I flail weakly. My head breaks through the water and then there’s air on my face, bitterly cold compared to the strangely warm water. I cough and sputter, saltwater pouring from my nose and my mouth.
Marisol leans over her pod, her eyes wide. She’s still got handfuls of my hair snagged in her fingers. “Are you alive?”
Choking and coughing, I nod and try to suck in enough air to please my burning lungs. Everything hurts. Everything. It feels like Marisol pulled my hair out by the roots, but that’s twice she’s saved me now.
She releases my hair and shoves a hand in my face and I weakly grab on to it. “Get in,” she tells me. “Hurry.”
The air feels colder than the water does, but I remember the things that live in this ocean. I hold tightly to her as she does her best to haul me into the pod. It takes a lot of effort from both of us to drag me into the pod and by the time I collapse onto the bottom, I’m exhausted and wheezing. My lungs still feel like they’re heavy with salt water, and brine is in my eyes, my nose, and my pores.
“Are you okay?” she asks, worried.
I give her a weak thumbs up.
She settles back down against me, not caring that I’m cold and wet, and takes off her jacket, offering it to me. She elbows me in the face as she does, but that’s okay. My teeth chatter and I strip off my sodden fur parka and use hers as a blanket. “Y-y-you’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” she agrees and pulls the lid back down
over us. It gets dark immediately, but it also gets warmer. I’m fine with that. “My pod immediately went to the surface. One of the others did, too, but I think the rest didn’t have lids on so they filled up. There’s no sign of the ship, either. I waited and waited, but I think when we were jettisoned, it pushed us far out to sea.” She hesitates for a moment and then adds, “I can’t see the shore.”
“It’s okay. Thank you for saving me,” I cough out, and I mean it. I’ve been babying Marisol because she’s been frightened, but she’s shown a staggering amount of bravery in the last while and I’m going to be forever grateful to her. “I…didn’t think beyond this,” I admit to her. “I don’t have a plan for getting us to shore.” A cuss word bubbles up inside me, but I end up just coughing out more seawater.
She pats my shoulder absently. “Don’t worry. If we’re near a shore of any kind the waves will carry us toward it. I think.”
I nod weakly, and then I’m too tired—or too waterlogged—to stay awake. I close my eyes to relieve my aching, splitting head. I just need to rest for a moment, I think. Then we’ll come up with a plan to get back to shore.
Just a moment.
5
K’THAR
One cannot live on an island without seeing strange things wash up on shore. Sometimes it is the carcass of a strange water creature with fins instead of legs and strange glowing blobs instead of eyes. Sometimes it’s an enormous bone from a long-dead animal, or the naked branches of a fallen tree. Shells. Fish. Smooth stones. Small stones. Large stones.
But…never before have I seen a stone as large as the black one that bobs against the surf in the distance. It looks to be larger than a full-grown male. Larger, even, than the fat, scaly body of a kaari.
And it floats. That in itself makes it unusual. I have to know what it is.
I scan the cliff I stand atop, looking for vines leading downward to let me climb my way to the shore. I must be quick. Even though the four clans—now three—live apart, we have an agreement. If something washes up on the shore, it belongs to those that find it.
And whatever this exotic, floating stone is, it is going to be mine.
Excited, I find a strong vine and begin to climb my way down the cliffs. There is no spot on this island I do not know like the backs of my hands, and it does not take me long to descend. A skyclaw soars overhead as I do, looking for easy prey, and I shift skin-tones with a thought, automatically blending to match the rock I press up against. The skyclaw flies right past without stopping, and if I did not have another mission, I might try leaping onto its back as it flies past. Skyclaw are good eating, after all, and there is plenty of meat for the entire tribe.
But there will always be more skyclaw, and I have never seen anything like this floating rock before. So I continue climbing down. I drop onto the beach quickly, pleased with the speed with which I’ve managed to cross the craggy cliffs. Were I not in a hurry, I might skip the vines and follow the winding trails down the cliffs. Check my traps. Forage greens. Enjoy the day. But the uniqueness of this find calls to me, makes me hurry.
I move toward it on the beach, letting my color fade back to normal. As I do, my steps slow and a growl forms in my throat, because I see another approaching from the opposite direction. Not just any sakh, but my most hated of rivals, R’jaal of the clan of the Tall Horn.
Of course it would be he.
I growl low in my throat and march toward him, pulling out my four blades and brandishing them in his direction, letting the threat speak for itself.
He gives me a sneer of welcome as he approaches, spear casually held in one of his hands. “I should have known you’d be here. Trash always washes ashore.”
“Big words for a male with only two puny hands,” I tell him. I gesture at the large rock, bobbing on the shore. “That is mine. I saw it first.”
“No, brother,” he says, using the term derisively. “That belongs to me. Even now I stand closer to it than you do.” And he leans over and taps the surface of the rock with his spear. “My sea gift, not yours.”
I eye him with loathing. He is tall and lean where I am strong and muscular. His natural color is slightly lighter than my own, camouflage rippling up and down his arms and changing colors with emotion. He might only have two arms to my four, but he is as strong as any, I know. I have fought him in the past.
But I have twice as many opportunities to grab him, if I can get close. The only thing that might cause me trouble are the massive sweep of horns arching from his brow that give his clan their name. Still, I am not the chief of the clan of the Strong Arm because I am a coward.
I flex aggressively, letting my colors show my anger. “I will not back down. This is mine to take.” I do not tell him that the food is scarce in our territory lately, or that I’chai has passed on, leaving us to care for her small son. That we struggle with bringing in food, since the same hunt that killed I’chai took N’dek’s leg. J’shel must remain behind and care for both kit and kin, which leaves all the hunting to me.
But R’jaal will not care about any of this, just as I do not care about his tribe’s troubles. His clan is dying, just like mine. All of us are dying out. We only prolong it with every day of survival. There is no hope for our people, not since the Great Smoking Mountain exploded seven turns ago and destroyed most of the island…and most of the people living on it.
No, R’jaal will not care if the clan of the Strong Arm is starving. Nor do I care if the Tall Horn are thriving on their side of the island. All I care about is this thing on the shore and that it is mine.
“So quick to battle me, K’thar?” R’jaal’s glance is mocking. “When you don’t even know what it is?”
“And you do?” I tell him, scoffing. I am still wary, but I do not sense an urge to fight from him, only his usual dismissive attitude. Cautious, I holster two of my knives, willing to stand down…but only a little.
“I think it is an egg,” he tells me, sliding his spear into its holster at his back to free his hands. He rubs them together, then gestures at the large black stone in the surf. “Look at how it bobs in the current. It is a monstrous egg of some kind.” He glances over at me through narrowed eyes, his skin color fading slightly to a more neutral shade. “We can crack it and split the contents. There should be enough food for both of our clans.”
I eye him. Why is he so eager to share? Clans do not share. We are rivals, he and I, and to give him half without a fight seems strange to me, unless R’jaal realizes that this sea gift is mine and he is trying to game a share for himself….
Or his people are hungry, as well.
I study him, thinking. I know I am hotheaded. I know it is my nature to fight. Everything in me is telling me to snarl and challenge him and claim this for my people. My people, not his. If he’s right and it is an egg, this yolk will feed little Z’hren for many days. I should not split it. It is mine to claim.
But if I fight R’jaal and he wins…then I return empty-handed. If it were anyone else, I would be completely assured of my success. I am the strongest of hunters on the island…but R’jaal is the quickest. He and I have sparred at clan gatherings and come out even more times than not. If it were anyone else…
I can chance it, or I can think of my clan’s well-being. I growl low in my throat because I know what I want, and yet I must think of my clan first. “I do not like sharing.”
“Nor I. But I also do not feel like fighting this day.” He puts his hands on his hips, tail flicking, looking very much as if he’d wish to fight after all.
I scowl at him. Lies. He loves a good spar as much as I do and I am his favorite fight partner. Something else must be troubling him, or he is sick.
Or starving.
Or he knows something I do not.
I study him for a moment longer, full of mistrust. Every moment we waste is another moment someone else could come along, though. I know it would not be one of my tribe. N’dek is cave-bound and J’shel will have the kit. It is only me out an
d about on this day. If another of the Tall Horn clan arrives, I will be outnumbered. Or if one of the Shadowed Cat clan arrives, we will have to split the sea’s bounty three ways. With a frustrated snarl, I flip one of my blades and offer it to him, handle first. “Let us carve out our shares, then.”
He grunts and sounds surprised that I have agreed. R’jaal takes the knife with a nod to me and then strides forward, tail flicking. I follow behind, my other knife still in hand as we approach the strange thing.
It looks dark, the shell of it smooth and unblemished unlike any creature I have ever seen before. There is a small circular bubble of some kind at the far end—an eye, perhaps—but the rest of the thing is unrelenting black. I touch the surface as R’jaal peers at it, and it feels like no eggshell or hide I have ever felt before.
He taps the end of his blade—my blade—against the surface and listens. “Sounds hollow.”
A hollow egg with a hard shell might mean the creature inside is ready to hatch. “Too dark to be a skyclaw egg,” I point out. Too large, too. Shame—skyclaw are good eating and can feed a clan for days on one egg. “Be ready for any creature that will emerge.”
He nods, his mouth firming into a hard, irritated line. I know how he feels. I do not like working with him either. But I think of the hungry mouths back at the tribe and the squalling kit who needs his mother’s milk—and will never get it. I must think of them first. I tap my own hilt on the surface and place my hand on it, checking for movement. There is a hairline crack along one side. Good enough place to stick a blade, I suppose. I push the edge of my knife in the crack and pry.
To my surprise, the shell hisses and lifts up. I jump backward, camouflaging even as I pull my knives from my belt once more, ready to attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that R’jaal camouflages as well, his skin changing to match the greenish-brown of the sand even as he pulls out his spear, readying to attack. I crouch low, twirling my knives, prepared to strike.
The piece of shell continues to rise and then moves gently to the side. The hissing stops. There’s a noise like a yawn, and then something rises from within.